I have no idea how much effort would be needed for that, but if it is a reasonable amount of work, and if it would alleviate maintenance on the Firefox OS codebase, this sounds like a good idea.
If you start or feel you need help, it may be a good idea to discuss your ideas where they can be seen more widely (Blog? Discourse?) + chat with Engagement, to see if you can gather volunteers. I know that there are many contributors out there who would be interested in helping salvage something from Firefox OS and who feel powerless at the moment. Cheers, David On 04/02/16 15:43, Benjamin Francis wrote: > Hi there, > > In light of our new strategy > <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.fxos/q23oHD8fXHY> > for Firefox OS, moving away from smartphones to a more diverse set of > Connected Devices on the Internet of things > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things>, I have an idea I'd > like to get some feedback on. > > The architecture of Firefox OS is currently split into three main layers: > > * Gonk - A Linux kernel and userspace hardware abstraction layer, many > parts of which are based on the Android Open Source Project and > other common open source projects. > * Gecko - web rendering engine and application runtime including a > network stack and graphics stack etc. > * Gaia - The collection of Firefox OS Apps which make up the user > interface for Firefox OS, built with web technologies. > > In evaluating the suitability of the current Firefox OS architecture for > new Connected Devices projects I noticed that Google's new Brillo > <https://developers.google.com/brillo/?hl=en> operating system has some > interesting characteristics which could be of value to us. > > By my understanding Gonk is essentially Android with the Java Android > Runtime removed and a layer of glue added between the Android Hardware > Abstraction Layer and Gecko, with a few additional components which are > specific to Firefox OS. > > The Brillo project is also an OS based on Android, with the Java layer > removed, also still has the Android Hardware Abstraction Layer and is > targeted at IoT devices. Brillo also differs from Android in that it is > developed in the open as part of AOSP, rather than being released as > code drops from Google like Android is. > > I'd like to hear from some people who have a better understanding of > Gonk than I do as to how feasible it would be to use Brillo as a base > for Firefox OS going forward. My reasons for suggesting this are: > > * Brillo is a ready-made version of Android with the Java layer > removed which is developed in the open and we could potentially > contribute to directly rather than maintaining a significantly > altered fork. > * Brillo could serve as a base for a wide range of IoT projects. For > headless devices it could be used as-is, and for those which render > web content we could build Gecko on top with a layer of glue on top > of the HAL similar to what we do today. > * There are likely to be a lot of off-the-shelf hardware products and > chipsets which will support Brillo out of the box and which would > make great building blocks for Connected Devices projects. > > One downside I can think of is that we'd still be limited to > Android-class hardware. Porting to other hardware which wasn't built > with Android/Brillo in mind, like the Raspberry Pi, would still be > challenging. Perhaps in cases like those a more vanilla Linux stack like > the one we use for desktop Firefox could be more appropriate? > > Anyway, I'd like to hear what you think. > > You can find the source code of Brillo at android.googlesource.com > <http://android.googlesource.com>. > > Thanks > > Ben > > > > _______________________________________________ > dev-fxos mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-fxos > _______________________________________________ dev-fxos mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-fxos
